


I'm Here To Listen

by OpienYourMind



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, i love them so much and yang is my sexuality after episode 12, now the bees can bee free, the incel goat is dead everyone saw it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 09:25:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17547020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpienYourMind/pseuds/OpienYourMind
Summary: Blake and Yang have nightmares at different times and about slightly different topics, but at least they've got their partners to console them.





	I'm Here To Listen

She remembered, all too well, how many nights Blake had had one of her nightmares. The first time, it had scared her.

Up until that point, Blake had seemed the picture of cool and collected- she hadn’t even betrayed emotion after the Deathstalker swept her over the cliff during initiation, simply lashing out with her weapon to swing back onto the narrow bridge with a smoothness that would’ve been irritating on anyone else. She cracked a small smile once in a while, like when their teams were assigned or when the two of them had finished off another mob of Grimm, but that was the full extent of her outward emotion as far as Yang could tell. 

So it had been all the more of a shock when, a few weeks after the incident with Torchwick at the docks, she was woken in the middle of the night by a strangled-sounding gasp from the bunk below hers. Yang had thrown off her covers and peered down over the edge of the bed, to see a pair of wide amber eyes swiping wildly across the room, pupils shrunk to the width of a pin. 

“Blake?”

She didn’t hear a response, just a series of long, shuddering breaths as Blake tried to calm herself down. She swung herself over the edge and down the ladder, not worrying about waking up her teammates- it was still about midnight according to her scroll, and Ruby and Weiss had both been exhausted after the day’s events. 

“Blake, talk to me.” Yang had automatically slipped into a soft, low voice, something that could give sympathy or advice interchangably- it’d become part of her repertoire after taking care of Ruby for a long time. “It’s all right,” she murmured, sitting down tentatively on the edge of the bed and feeling how wildly the sheets had been thrown around- gods, what could she possibly have dreamed about? She hovered an arm uncertainly over Blake’s rod-straight back, and when her partner didn’t respond, lowered it to wrap around her heaving shoulders. It startled Yang to feel how tense Blake’s muscles were- obviously, she was physically strong, her battle outfit’s freedom from sleeves told her that well enough- but her shoulders were so tight it was like she’d been lugging a burden heavier than a hundred overstuffed schoolbags around for a month. 

After this thought entered her mind, Yang belatedly realized Blake was soaked in a cold sweat tangible even through the fabric of her sleeping yukata. 

“Holy crap,” Yang whispered, her calming voice breaking slightly with alarm as her violet eyes widened. “Blake, what’s going on? Are you… having a panic attack or something?”

“No.”

The response was so quiet and quavering Yang wasn’t sure she’d actually heard it. 

“No? What’s going on? You can tell me. I promise.” She spoke in short sentences, easy-to-process thoughts for someone whose mind had barely stopped whirling, just like when she was barely into her teens and grasping for a way to calm her hyper sister down.

“You don’t have to pr-” Blake cut herself off before she could finish her sentence, making a choked sound in her throat.

Yang weighed her options for a second before plunging forward.  _ Bottling up emotion never makes anyone happy, firecracker. You don’t have to wear them on your sleeves-  _ or lack thereof, she noted again of Blake’s gear-  _ but it’s always okay to have an outlet. Just talk to someone if you need to, sing, write, draw, hell, go out and punch some small-fry Grimm into pieces- once you’ve gotten through your training, of course. _ She couldn’t help giving a little smile on the inside as she remembered what Tai had said to her.  _ Just because you have to be the big sis doesn’t mean Ruby has to be the only one who can vent, all right? _

“It’s okay. I’m here to listen. I’m your partner, remember? You gotta trust me.” She squeezed the trembling girl’s shoulder for a second.

Blake made a small sound in her throat- Yang wasn’t sure whether it was a sob, a cough, or an assent, but either way, she started speaking. Her head slowly leaned into Yang’s shoulder and the crook of her neck, and Yang felt something wet fall against her skin as she realized Blake had been crying. 

“You remember… in class the other day, how I was sketching in my notebook?”

“Yeah, I remember. Lucky I didn’t rat you out to Oz, you delinquent.” Yang let a minuscule smirk creep into her low voice as she replied, mentally high-fiving herself when she heard a sniffling laugh from her partner. 

“That person in the mask, who you saw me drawing- his name is Adam. We were…” Blake paused, and Yang got the sense she was choosing her next words carefully. “He and I… used to work together… when I was still a member of the Fang.”

Yang said nothing, letting Blake’s tears and her story spill out of her, but moved her arm down to her partner’s midsection and let it rub gently up and down across her back.

“He… we were partners. More than that. I used to look up to him- everyone did, back then. He was strong, he was driven, and he was kind. Or, I guess, I thought he was. We worked together in protests, events, everything- and later, once the Fang became how it is now, in attacks.”

Yang nodded. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t seen it coming- Blake had told the three of them her story, being a Faunus and ex-White Fang, after the incident at the docks. 

“He started to change at some point, I don’t remember when. It definitely had something to do with an attack on my parents back when they were the leaders- he killed a couple of people who were fighting us. He’d claimed it was self-defense, but…” Blake took a deep breath at this point. “It seemed to fuel him. Somehow, he got into his head that it was the just thing to do- an eye for an eye, I suppose.” She mumbled to herself, something that sounded a little like  _ Literally _ , but Yang dismissed it- she was already talking again.

“He cared less and less about our mission. About me. I didn’t realize at the time, but he started to get manipulative- always bringing up my parents when I thought we were doing something wrong, how we were in too deep and couldn’t go back. He acted like it was an attack on him every time I disagreed- and for a while, I believed him, damn it.”

Yang’s eyebrows had furrowed in sympathetic anger, and she felt the heat in her stomach that always accompanied her Semblance- a couple strands of her hair glowed subtly, and by the reflection in Blake’s eyes she could tell her eyes had turned from a vivid purple to more of a magenta. 

“So… one day, when we were raiding a train carrying supplies from the Schnee Dust Company-” Blake lowered her voice here, not wanting Weiss to be roused by hearing her name. “He made it pretty clear how he felt about whoever was on that train, so… I cut the cars away with him on them. I haven’t seen him since. But,” she took another breath, the shuddering mostly gone but still present, “I dream… about him. Or, about what he-  _ we _ \- did, I suppose. I thought it’d gotten better since I came to Beacon, but I guess you can see…” Yang saw Blake gesture at her sweaty, shivering body with a vaguely silhouetted arm. “He still manages to hurt people, even when he’s not around.”

Yang felt the heavy implication of that sentence hang over her head. “Blake, oh my gods, did he- what did he do to  _ you? _ ”

Blake wouldn’t speak. She dug her tear-streaked nose deeper into Yang’s neck, quivering even harder than before. Yang wrapped one arm tightly around her back, the other falling across her shoulder and her hand rubbing the back of Blake’s head with the utmost care. She stopped just short of touching Blake’s fuzzy, flattened ears, unsure if she was ready to take that step quite yet, but sat there quietly, letting her body heat warm Blake and her steady motions slowly, slowly, quell the emotions running wild in the shivering girl.    
“We’re here for you, Blake. We won’t-” Yang paused, unsure whether to say the words she wanted to. Blake had already proven once that she was prone to leave when things got tough- did she really want to put this responsibility in her own hands?

_ She chose you as her partner, _ Yang’s inner voice- the one that sounded annoyingly, and ironically, like Raven, the  _ last _ person in the world she’d go to for advice- reminded her.  _ She chose you because she trusts you. She’s opening up to you. You  _ can _ keep her grounded. _

Yang sighed, Blake’s body shifting to match the heavy breath’s rhythm as she was pressed into her chest. “ _ I  _ won’t let it happen again. I swear, Blake.”

A little while after her final reassurance, the sobbing stopped and Blake’s movements shifted from spastic and shivery to slow and even. Yang listened closely, and her practiced ears heard the sound of low, slow breathing that accompanied sleep. She pulled herself back slightly to look at Blake’s face in the dark, finding what she saw to be calm and placid despite the tear streaks reflecting specks of moonlight.

_ Well, this time I’m not gonna sneak away because someone fell asleep before their bedtime story finished, _ Yang thought wryly to herself, her own face falling slowly into Blake’s soft hair.

 

-

 

She always remembered her own nightmares, too. Things had changed after the fall of Beacon- she jumped at shadows, expecting a figure with a wilting-rose emblem and a wicked-looking red sword to step suddenly out of any one of them. Her left hand had shaken, no matter how much she grasped it within her prosthetic- maybe the touch of the metal just wasn’t close enough to a real hand, however close it was practically speaking. And so many times, every night during her recovery and even most nights afterward, she’d bolted upright in bed drenched in sweat, a scream dying on her lips as she searched frantically, making sure she was in her own bed and not standing among burning beams as Adam’s grin that made him seem more like a wolf Faunus than a bull drew closer, as he raised his sword, preparing in that night’s dream to cut her other arm perhaps, or her legs, even her neck- 

Blake was there, once or twice. It was always a different scenario when she appeared. Sometimes they would be sparring. Sometimes walking together. Sometimes going out to explore Vale. Sometimes just lying in bed.

But every time, Yang would just look up after a while and see only herself in the training hall or street or dorm room. She felt herself plunge into panic immediately- she tried to call Blake’s name, but something would stop her from speaking; she’d run to the exits to search for her and find them all shut tight.

And every time, when she turned back, he was waiting with that grin on his face, hair and sword beginning to shine a dull blood red as if they reflected her own eyes’ color-

-

 

This time was different.

Blake hadn’t vanished, seemingly into nothing, in this dream. Adam hadn’t appeared, similarly out of nowhere, halfway through. No, they had been standing there from the beginning and remained, or at least until Adam staggered between herself and Blake.

Yang experienced everything as if it happened from miles away- the sound and feel of half Blake’s sword, sliding with sickening ease through Adam’s body and into his ribcage, followed by the sight of the other half blossoming from his chest caked with still-wet blood.

She saw it all. Adam slowly going limp as his life force ebbed away, his staggering close to the edge with the last of his energy, his collapse forward into the mist of the waterfall. The  _ crunch _ of his inert body hitting the rocks on the way down made her want to double over and throw up. 

Blake, however, doubled over first, sobbing as though the sight of her own broken sword painted with Adam’s blood had broken something vital inside her. The knowledge that she, Yang Xiao Long, had  _ killed _ someone seemed to flood her mind afresh in a crushing one-two with the sight of her partner crumpled on the smooth rock bridge. 

Yang wanted to run to her, comfort her, just  _ be _ with her and keep Blake here, but she couldn’t take a step. All she could do was stand there and watch.

Yang felt her cheeks burn with shame- that was all she’d  _ ever _ be able to do. 

“Yang? Yang!?”

“Mm?”

Suddenly the sight before her wasn’t a pristine waterfall, but the interior of an Atlesian military vessel. And, Yang realized as she slowly came to, the burning on her cheek was Blake’s palm- although this made her face flame even hotter.

“Yang, you… your hand was shaking. And you looked really scared, or sad, or something- I was trying to wake you up for a while, but you wouldn’t open your eyes.” Blake’s amber eyes were full of concern as they peered into hers, and her ears were half-flattened like they always were when she got worried.

“Sorry,” Yang mumbled, hoping Blake couldn’t also hear her heart pounding at the sight of Blake’s face this close to her own. It felt different now that the tears were shed and the promises made, different than it had even before everything they both knew had been called into question. “I was… dreaming.”

“What about?” Blake took Yang’s left hand in both of hers, quelling a tremor she hadn’t even realized was there. It was amazing how well she knew her idiosyncrasies- just like how she’d known Yang would be there on Adam’s other side in the fight when she kicked him towards her.

Yang stared into Blake’s eyes, their pupils wide, for a second. Lying would only make things worse in the long run. She recalled how horrible it’d felt, all those months she thought Blake had lied to her, and then the overwhelming sense of relief that came with the few words Blake had spoken in her ear after the battle-  _ I’m not gonna break my promise. I swear.  _

Lying now wouldn’t make her any better than Adam, breaking Blake’s trust after she’d poured out her heart.

“I was having a nightmare.” Yang suddenly averted her eyes, feeling an immense pressure to look away. “We- we had just…”  _ Killed Adam. _ “Finished the fight, and I… just felt it all over again. But I didn’t come to you afterward. I couldn’t, I don’t know why, I just couldn’t-” She felt a sting of tears beginning to build in her eyes, clouding them from a deep purple to a misty lavender. “I wasn’t there for you. And I felt like I never could be.”

“Yang…” Blake suddenly wrapped her arms around Yang and pulled her into a hug, her chin on Yang’s forehead and the blonde’s eyes widening with shock. When Blake next spoke, it was in a quiet, dulcet voice that sounded so, so comforting- like a voice that you could sink into and fall asleep under the weight of. “But you _were_. You were there, just like you’ve always been and you always will be. I wasn’t there for you, but…” Yang felt Blake’s lips against her hair turn up into a sheepish half-smile. “Maybe now, I can start to be. It felt like you were just always so strong that I could never return the favor.”

“Thanks, Blake.” Yang closed her eyes and burrowed into Blake’s neck.

“No worries. After all, I’m here to listen, I always will be. I swear.”

“You’ve sure been big on promises lately,” Yang laughed quietly, pulling her head up to look at Blake as she returned her smile. “Is this a new resolution of yours or something?”

“I don’t know. But this time, I can assure you I’m going to keep at least a couple.”

_ A couple? Gods, if that phrasing was on purpose-  _ Yang mentally slapped herself out of it.

“I’ll be around to help you keep them. Don’t worry.”

“Thanks, Yang.” Blake closed her eyes and leaned her forehead against Yang’s, like she’d done after the battle. Only this time, neither of them was crying, and Blake let out a contented sigh. They were just enjoying a moment of solace, one which would probably be hard to come by in future.

Although if they did get more, Yang would be more than happy to spend them with Blake.

“Because…”   
“Because?”

“I promised myself- a while ago, actually-” Unless it was her vision going red for some reason, Blake’s cheeks had turned a darker pink than their normal color this time. She held a stare into Yang’s eyes, and for once Yang was floored by the pure resolve in it. What was she doing? 

“That I’d do this…” Blake’s voice dropped to a whisper on the last word. She took Yang’s left hand in hers again, and wrapped her own left hand around the back of Yang’s head. 

As Blake’s lips brushed against hers, Yang slowly felt all of her higher mental functions begin breaking down.

That wasn’t to say she stopped. She threaded her prosthetic fingers through Blake’s hair, velvety soft as always, and returned the kiss with a quiet determination. It wasn’t like any of the fantasies she’d had, most of which involved Blake being coy and hard-to-get and none of which involved the two of them holding each other like their lives depended on it after a battle for their lives and their mission.

It was better.

Because even the few times Blake pulled away from Yang to inhale, her eyes glassy, Yang knew with all her heart she would come back. She would always come back.

She had made a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> hey yall remember when i wrote something for rwby? yeah, me neither lmao, i just had a LOT of feels i wanted to get out before the finale in case someone dies
> 
> anyway, i'm so fucking happy that these two are all but canon right now, my skin is clear, my crops are watered etc etc. enjoy, and remember, tauradonna and anyone who still supports it are entirely invalid as confirmed by rooster teeth!


End file.
